PIMCO Execs Boost GLG's Fixed Income Unit

Man Group Plc’s (EMG) GLG hedge-fund division has hired a Pacific Investment Management Co. trader and a senior adviser at the World Bank as it expands products focused on bonds, emerging markets and macro-economic trends.

Pimco’s Kumaran Damodaran joins GLG as a portfolio manager trading emerging-market fixed income, London-based Man Group said in a statement today. The World Bank’s Brian Pinto was hired as a senior macro-economist who will also focus on emerging markets, GLG said. Man Group also named two co-heads of a newly combined macro and fixed-income arm at GLG.

Man Group is shaking up GLG’s staff after its $1.6 billion acquisition of the London-based hedge-fund manager in 2010 failed to boost the company’s share price. Man Group has fallen about 70% over the past two years after losses at its biggest hedge fund, the AHL computer-driven strategy, lost money and clients pulled money.

Bart Turtelboom and Karim Abdel-Motaal, who led emerging- market hedge funds at GLG, will be leaving the firm at the end of the month as part of the changes, said David Waller, a spokesman for Man Group. GLG hired Turtelboom and Abdel-Motaal in 2008 from Morgan Stanley.

In their stead, Sudi Mariappa and Jamil Baz will jointly lead the new macro and fixed-income group, Man said today. Mariappa joined GLG in October after heading an $80 billion fixed-income unit at Newport Beach, California-based Pimco, Man Group said. Baz, who manages GLG’s Atlas Macro hedge fund, joined the firm in 2008 from Pimco.

The company also announced that Richard Bateson, a strategist at AHL, has moved over to GLG as a senior quantitative analyst.

Shares of Man Group, the world’s biggest publicly traded hedge-fund firm, rose 3.05 pence, or 3.5%, to 90.65 pence as of 12:26 p.m. in London, giving the company a market value of 1.7 billion pounds ($2.7 billion). The shares are up 24% since the company announced on Dec. 10 that Emmanuel Roman would replace Peter Clarke as chief executive officer.